Now it is time to seek a newer world (2)

THIS is why today the dollar is gradually taking a downward slide, stocks are crashing, mortgages are collapsing, consumers no longer flood the shops. The dream is dying. New economic powers are emerging. China, India and the like which were once turned to for cheap labour to meet consumer demand in America have become strengthened by grit and the sheer demands placed on them. Today America owes China alone over a trillion dollars in support of its citizens' insatiable consumption of Chinese goods. But now China, India and other Asian countries having been taught how to produce massively, and since America is unable to buy everything again from them, are looking for new markets. They are turning to Africa. And where is Africa in all these?

Africa is a land of many contrasts. To many, whenever mention is made of Africa the picture that comes to mind is that of that Dark Continent in the back recesses of the world. To some extent this is justifiable. We cannot lay all the blame on foreigners. A race that fails to keep with the universal pace of development must place the main fault at its door.

The foreign slave merchants of old had African chiefs and traders as their collaborators. Today's economic hit-men from America and elsewhere had corrupt and oppressive regimes to thank for the wholesale adoption of their failed economic packages. We cannot say the same however of the average African in the street. Though he may not have been to school, he is schooled in the dictates of his heart. Deep within he could sense the minutest vibrations of that which rings true. He knows what is right and just and in his affairs with others he strives to do the right thing. He is not tainted by the greed of materialism. Such was my experience when as the first lady of Ondo State in South West Nigeria in the 1980s I was privileged to work with the local women.

Under the project called Better Life for Rural Women, the inner values of these simple women shone like a thousand stars. A trader would leave her goods and the equivalent amount of the unit price of the goods besides her wares if she had to go away to attend to other things. Let her be away from the market all day, in the evening she would find there, her remaining goods and the exact amount of goods bought by passers-by. It would not cross the mind of any one to take advantage of her absence from her stall. Even one who needed two tubers of yam to feed his family but had enough money for only one, would not take another tuber in the absence of the seller. People cherish their name, their dignity and the need to ensure justice at all times than anything else.

This trait I must say cuts across most communities in Africa. In the course of my thirty five years in public life, I have traversed the length and breath of Africa and worked especially among the women and the children and I bear testimony to how people guard their self-respect and reputation, how they strive to be fair and just in their dealings and how this have helped to sustain associations and ventures. Never mind the new picture that some Africans have notoriously cut for our Continent.

It will not be fair if I do not acknowledge the positive influences here of Europe and Europeans especially on us in Africa. The coming of the whites has no doubt opened up Africa to a remarkable level of modern development. Now we have education, electricity, pipe-borne water, modern roads, technology, etc. We owe it to the Europeans that cures have been found today to most of the diseases known to devastate Africa centuries ago. Businesses have also helped to develop our resources to levels once unimagined.

But together we can do more and better in a fair and just manner. Events happening worldwide show that things are changing fast and we must change if we wish to survive. Some years ago, some countries were giving their farmers subsidies so they would not grow more than a certain amount of food in order to sell at high prices and maintain their global competitive edge. Today, there is increasing food shortage across the globe. Scientific inventions to help grains yield more are failing. Of what use is human advancement in one part of the globe if it can not be employed in another part of the world?

It is time to reach out to one another in governments and businesses and salvage the situation. We need each other. We have done it together before. It was our collective effort that helped to end the slave trade, to put an end to colonialism and apartheid. We can do it again if Europe would see Africa as an authentic partner in the new deal.